05/15/2021
VDARE.com contributor Linda Thom writes that letters to the editor like the one she wrote below disagreeing politely and factually with a Wall Street Journal immigration enthusiast editorial, do get published if they're well reasoned and well argued, because "Editors look for differing opinions."
This appeared in the WSJ today:
Baby Bust Is Nothing New; U.S. Is Growing
Your editorial “America’s Growing Baby Bust” (May 6) notes that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that U.S. births declined last year, and that the total fertility rate (TFR) also declined to a record low of 1,637.5 births per 1,000 women, which is lower than the population replacement level of 2,100.
According to the CDC: “The U.S. TFR has generally been below replacement since 1971.” In 1970 the U.S. population was 205 million and in 2020, the population was 331 million. The increase of millions resulted almost entirely because of immigrants and their descendants.
You further state that: “Existing entitlements will be harder to fund if the population grows more slowly.” Medicaid is one of those entitlements. According to the CDC, Medicaid funded 59% of Hispanic women’s deliveries in 2018 and 46% of those women were foreign born, mostly from Mexico and Central America.
The largest entitlement is a free public education. U.S. schools aren’t suffering from a student shortage. America isn’t suffering from a worker shortage. America isn’t suffering from a people shortage. The U.S. doesn’t need any more immigrants.
Linda Thom
WSJ, May 14, 2021
The source for the demographic data above is National Vital Statistics Reports Volume 68, Number 13: Births: Final Data for 2018, November 27, 2019, especially Table 19.
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